August 08, 2007

In the beginning....

we were optimistic. The place was inexpensive and all of our friends had what seemed to be an "easy" time getting a loan, closing, and getting in. Unfortunately, the stars didn't align for us.

A day after our offer was accepted, we ran to our bank and began applying for the mortgage loan. We scraped together a down payment from various sources, and deposited the funds into our account. Unlike most places, I don't know if it is New York specific, or what, our bank needed to know exactly where the money came from, how long it had been in our account, etc. Needless to say, the money wasn't from our savings. In addition to that specific interrogation, there are also a lot of co-op specific issues that arise when going through the mortgage process.

Every week it was the same story. I would call our mortgage broker, she would tell me, "we need this or that signed, now we need this document, or I'm just waiting on this paperwork to get back to me." We dealt with this for literally 6 months. Finally, in February, they phoned us saying it was complete, it was ready for closing, time to set up the meeting with our lawyer. YEAH! FINALLY!!.

Oh but wait, the day before we were supposed to close we got another phone call, this one with not as great news. It went something like this

"I'm sorry Mrs. Bean, we weren't able to verify that the funds for your down payment were in the bank long enough before you applied, and some of the sources you received your money from, we don't accept. So I am sorry, we are denying your loan."

I said something like this.

"What? after 6 months of dragging us along, that is it? what do you mean you don't accept where our money came from, it isn't laundered, we borrowed it from our parents."Sob. Sob.

The crying didn't help or make a difference.

At that point I didn't know what to do. Luckily someone from work recommended a mortgage broker from another bank that supposedly could get things done "fast". I called her that day, and to her reputation, it took less than a month. (Fast for New York time).

We called the seller and told him we were ready to close. We did think it was a bit odd that he hadn't even bothered following up with us, now we know why. He said that because it took so long for us to get everything together, the value of the apartment had increased an additional $50,000 and he was adding it to our initial offer price. Clearly that didn't work for us. Our lawyer gave us some options, and we decided that we would sue the seller if he tried to raise the price. The seller then came back with the worst scenario possible, and we took it.

I LOVE IT! Not the story at the time but this rather engaging retelling. During, no that was H. E. double hockey sticks (don't want to offend any of the brooklyn bean readers with any offensive language although 'double hockey sticks' is rather offensive) but this, this is is rather exciting. Way to leave us with a cliff hanger of all cliff hangers. Do they make it out alive? What it's in the hatch? Is it a flash forward? Wait I'm getting my stories confused, regardless, you've got us readers hooked.